Recent advances in radiation therapy are providing new avenues of effective treatment for localized cancer. These include three-dimensional conformal external beam radiation, intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), and stereotactic radiosurgery and brachytherapy. These newer treatment modalities deliver greater doses of radiation to the tumor, which accounts for their increased effectiveness when compared to standard external beam radiation therapy.
To achieve continued improvements in the management of localized cancers with radiotherapy, further dose escalation is necessary because a dose response relationship for radiotherapy exists for most cancers. However, with the increased dose of delivered radiation comes the potential for increased complications to healthy tissues, unless measures are taken to reduce the amount of adjacent normal tissue irradiated. Effective radiation treatments are dependent upon both total dose of radiation and the volume of normal tissue irradiated around the tumor. Therefore, as the radiation dose is increased, the volume of adjacent normal tissue irradiated must be decreased in order to keep an equivalent rate of effective radiation treatment.
To reduce the amount of adjacent normal tissue that is irradiated, one must prescribe the radiation to the target with a tighter treatment margin, that being an area of healthy tissue around the target that receives the full dose of prescribed radiation. For example, if the treatment margin for prostate cancer is too large, the margin may encompass some rectal, bladder and bulbar urethral tissues. It is highly desirable to provide a margin that does not encompass these important tissues.
It would be ideal to have no treatment margin at all. Some margin has been necessary, however due to day-by-day variability in the initial radiation treatment setup and delivery with existing systems. Margins have also been needed to accommodate for potential internal movement of a target within the patient's body that can occur even when the exterior portion of the patient remains stationary. Several studies have documented and quantified that tumor motion in the prostate occurs during radiation treatment, primarily due to the patient's breathing, and due to natural rectal and bladder filling and emptying. Without some treatment margin, the potential exists that the tumor itself could move out of the treatment volume.
In addition, if the patient is set up so the radiation beam is initially off target, or if the target moves during treatment, the beam hits more of the normal tissue and causes increased collateral damage to the normal tissue, as well as potentially under-dosing the target. It is highly desirable to prevent as much collateral damage to normal tissue as possible. Thus, day-by-day, minute-by-minute changes in radiation treatment setup and target motion have posed serious challenges when dose escalation is attempted with current patient setup processes.
Current patient setup procedures are reliant upon alignment of external reference markings on the patient's body with visual alignment guides for the radiation delivery device. As an example, a tumor is identified within a patient's body with an imaging system, such as an X-ray, computerized tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or ultrasound system. The approximate location of a tumor in the body is aligned with two or more alignment points on the exterior of the patient's body, and external marks are written on the patient's skin to mark the alignment points.
During the patient setup for radiation treatment, the external marks are aligned with a reference system of the radiation delivery devices. This setup process attempts to accurately position the treatment target (or patient) isocenter within the body at a position in space where the radiation beam is focused, known as the machine isocenter. By precisely positioning the treatment target with respect to the machine isocenter, the effective patient treatment volume within the body is accurately registered (or positioned) to the radiation therapy treatment plan location. If, however, the target has moved relative to the external marks, then the target may be offset from the machine's isocenter, even when the external aligning devices and marks are properly aligned. Accordingly, the doctors and technicians cannot tell how far the target has actually moved relative to the machine's isocenter. As an example, studies have documented target displacements of up to 1.6 cm between two consecutive days of prostate radiotherapy treatment. Substantial target displacement of lung tumors in a very short time period has also been documented because of the patient's breathing and heartbeats. Such internal motion of the target can cause inaccuracies in treatment deliveries, so larger margins of healthy tissue are prescribed and irradiated to compensate for likely internal target motions.